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  Paschal saw the killing, red-rimmed stare focus on him. “I go now, Payton. I won’t be long.” He grunted, hefting his big body up onto the saddle, the horse steadying itself against his weight.

  When he’d kicked the horse out onto the dusty trail, Payton Parker turned to Leo and McCord. “Now see? See how easy that was? He gets back, we’ll have a little toot or two, and get down to business.”

  McCord and Leo nodded. Payton went to his horse and looped the canteen strap over the saddle horn. The horse nickered and shied a step. “Don’t you start in on me too, fool,” he said, jerking the horse’s reins hard and pulling it over beside him as he gazed out through the falling darkness.

  Chapter 21

  Payton, Leo, and McCord restlessly waited in the dark for the Frenchman to return. “It must be after midnight,” McCord said. “What if he decides to just skip on out of here? If the women have the gold with them, he could kill them, take the gold for himself, and go off doing whatever it is Frenchmen do when there’s nobody around to stop them.” McCord paced back and forth, drumming his fingers on his pistol butt. On the ground beside their horses, Payton and Leo looked up at him in the darkness.

  “Damn it, McCord,” Payton said. “If you’re so ate up with the what-ifs, why don’t you ride on out and see what’s taking him?”

  “Naw, damn it.” McCord took a deep breath and settled himself. “Just getting edgy. Wishing we’d get this thing done before something else goes wrong.”

  “It’s not going to, so shut up about it,” Payton said. “You’re spooking yourself. If you’re not careful, you’ll get as crazy as Leo here—always thinking there’s a big Negro coming for him.”

  Leo shot him a dark glance. “Durant is back there, Payton. You heard Paschal say it. He saw him.”

  “Maybe he saw a big Negro, maybe he didn’t,” Payton responded. “Once you start believing that stinking idiot, you open up all sorts of possibilities. Even if there was a big Negro back there, that don’t mean it’s Durant.”

  McCord shook his head. “I don’t know what you boys did to Willis Durant, but if he really is on your backs, he won’t be easily stopped.”

  “Here we go again,” Payton said. “I wish Willis Durant really was dogging us, just so’s I could show you both how easy it is to blow his bushy head off.” Payton chuckled under his breath. “I swear, you’re getting as finicky as schoolmarms.” He swung his gaze to McCord, seeing him pacing again. “Sit down, McCord, you’re getting on my nerves! I’m wondering if there’s room for you on our next big job.”

  Next big job? McCord looked at Payton Parker, then at his brother Leo. Jesus.…He sat down and pulled his hat low over his eyes. If he got his gold and got away from these two, he’d shoot them both if they ever came riding into sight again.

  They waited.

  Another hour had passed before Paschal came back with a tall bottle of rye shoved inside his dirty buckskin shirt. “What the hell took you so long, Frenchy?”

  “I had to go through a back window to get this whiskey,” Paschal said, patting the bottle in his shirt.

  “Well? What’d you find out for us?” Payton Parker reached a hand, snapping his fingers toward the bottle before the big Frenchman had a chance to step down from his saddle. Paschal grunted, pulled the bottle out and pitched it into Payton Parker’s hands.

  “It is like you said. The horse is there—I saw it—and the federale saddle in the stable.” He swung his big body down from the horse.

  “Damn it, Frenchy,” Payton Parker said, wiping the bottle up and down his trouser leg. “Couldn’t you carry this in your saddlebags? It’s hot now and smells like it’s been passed through a buzzard’s belly.” He pulled the cork and threw back a drink. “Anything else?” Payton wiped a hand across his moistened lips and took another drink, staring at Paschal.

  “A boy who cleans up Juan Verdere’s cantina said the women were there earlier, but they are gone now.”

  “That’s a damn lie,” Payton said, grinning. “There’s no place to go from here…especially without a horse.”

  “The boy, Hernando, said they traded the horse for two desert burros.” Paschal reached for the bottle of rye, but Payton passed it over to Leo.

  “Ha, I bet.” Payton spat and licked his lips. “Now wouldn’t that be a pretty picture? Two women on donkeys, beating it out across the desert, with us right behind them? I hope to God you didn’t believe any of this, Frenchy.”

  “No, of course I did not believe him.” Leo finished taking a drink and started to hand the bottle to Paschal, but McCord slipped his hand in and took it just before it reached Paschal’s grimy fingertips. Paschal fumed. “You asked me to find out what I could, so I did. There are burro prints leading out to the foothills north of town. I think the women are hiding up there somewhere.”

  “Hmmm…” Payton thought about it. McCord took a long drink from the bottle and finally passed it to Paschal. Paschal guzzled away until Payton snatched it from his lips. “Damn it! Don’t drink the whole thing.” He wiped his palm around on the tip of the bottle, inspected it, and shoved the cork back down its neck. “I don’t suppose you saw your ole buddy Juan Verdere while you were there, huh?”

  “No, I did not see him.”

  Payton Parker nodded. “He probably ain’t back yet from telling the federales what happened out at Diablo Canyon.”

  “Most likely he is not,” Paschal said, eyeing Payton, sensing something at work in Payton’s voice.

  “Bet he won’t be for a hell of a long time, either,” Payton said, winking, offering the Frenchman a nasty grin.

  “What do you mean by that?” Paschal asked.

  “Meaning…I bet you killed that ole fart and left him out there for buzzard bait.” Payton Parker chuckled, looking around at Leo and McCord, then back to Paschal. “Come on now, Frenchy. Did you think I fell for that little story? You two never get that far apart. If he’d gone to the federales you would have been right beside him, stinking to high heaven.”

  “I think the whiskey has kicked you like a mule, Payton.” Paschal shot a nervous glance at the other two, trying to smile and pass it off, but his smile lacked substance beneath a widening sheen of sweat. “You know that Juan Verdere was like a brother to me.”

  “Yeah, yeah…” Payton Parker brushed it away. Uncorking the bottle, he took another drink, let out a whiskey hiss, and said, “Why so worried, Frenchy? It ain’t as if we’re gonna tell anybody. Look at us, we’re outlaws, Border Dogs, desperados, for chrissakes.” He spread an arm and shrugged. “So what—you killed your old friend. More power to you is all I got to say.”

  “Then why are you asking me such a question—making such a big thing out of it?” Paschal looked worried, suspicious.

  Payton let out a low belch. “It’s just that if you’d kill your best friend for his part of the gold…where does that put Leo, McCord, and me? How do we know you won’t do us in when the time comes?” He grinned. “We’re a little concerned, especially ole McCord there. He’s got some Injun blood in him, making him more than a little suspicious, right McCord?”

  “That’s right,” McCord said, giving Paschal a dark stare. “Part Cherokee on my mama’s side.”

  “Come on, amigos, we are all after the same thing here.” Paschal said, sweating more as Leo and McCord drew closer. “What has gotten into you? What can I do to show you we are all friends? I will do it. Anything! Anything at all!”

  “Now that’s a frightening thought, Frenchy,” Payton Parker said. “But now that you mention it—how well do you know those foothills north of town?”

  “Like the back of my hand—” Paschal’s words stopped short, realizing what Payton was about to demand of him. His big chin dropped. “Surely you are joking? You can’t expect me to go up into those dark foothills, knowing they are armed and waiting! They will kill me!”

  “That’s only a possibility,” Payton said. He patted the pistol on his hip. “If you don’t do what I’m telling ya, this
here is a sure thing, parly-voo…you stinking polecat son of a bitch? We ain’t carrying your ornery hide on this job. You got to work for your share.”

  Paschal swallowed a dry knot in his throat. “Go alone? Where will you be?”

  “We’ll be down in San Carlos, keeping watch. Don’t worry, we hear anything up there—see any muzzle flashes or whatever—we’ll be in there like a streak of lightning. It’ll be morning in a few hours. I got an idea how to flush them gals out, once you make sure where they are.” He grinned and threw back another shot of whiskey.

  Like two birds in a dark rock nest, the women huddled beneath blankets thrown around them and looked back toward San Carlos, where the lantern glowed dim and steady through Hernando’s adobe window. Hernando’s grandmother had taken it on herself to go out right after dark and wipe the window clean with a rag, in order for the women to see it more clearly.

  “I don’t see how we’ll ever stand it up here all night,” Prudence said. “I’m freezing already. It’s colder here than it was on the sand flats at night. God, I hate this crazy land. Give me good ole New Orleans any time.”

  “We will manage,” Maria said without turning to her. “If we get too cold, we will sleep between the burros. Their body heat will keep us warm.” Her eyes stayed on the dim light in window. “I was in New Orleans once, for a week.”

  “Really? What did you think of it?” Prudence leaned toward her a little.

  “It rained,” Maria said.

  “Oh…” A silence passed, then Prudence continued in a quiet tone, “But you got to see some of the sights, I’m sure.”

  “It rained every day for the entire week.” Maria let out a tired breath, gathered the blanket around her, and after a pause said, “When you get back to New Orleans, you will have quite a story to tell all your friends.”

  “Shouldn’t you say if instead of when I get back? You certainly sound optimistic.”

  “We have come this far. I have no intention of losing to the Parkers, do you?”

  “No, of course not,” Prudence said. She jiggled the big pistol on her lap and seemed to think about something for a second. “Where you hid the gold beneath the tree, do you think anyone could just happen by and find it?”

  “You saw the sand flats,” Maria said. “How many people do you suppose just happen by there?” She shook her head. “No. The gold will be there a thousand years unless we tell something where to look.”

  “But behind the roots of a tree? What if a big rain washed away more of the bank?”

  “I will tell you a secret,” Maria said. “It is not behind the tree roots.”

  Prudence’s eyes took on a sharpness, watching Maria gaze down at the soft glow of light from the window. “Then where is it?”

  “It is behind a flat rock against the other bank of the dry wash,” Maria said.

  “Oh, really?” Prudence stared at her.

  “I thought it was best you did not know in case the Parkers caught us before we crossed the flats. If they got their hands on us, you could not have told them something you did not know.”

  “And you thought if it came down to it, you could hold out, but not me?”

  “Let me put it this way,” Maria said. “We had the desert to cross. I did not know if you would make it or not. At the time I could not afford to take the chance.”

  “But you can now?”

  “Now I can.” Maria kept her gaze on the light from the window.

  On the dark trail into San Carlos, Payton, Leo, and McCord came forward at a slow, steady pace, keeping their horses quiet. Paschal had cut away, upward across the hundred-yard stretch of ground between the town and the black jagged outline of the foothills to their right.

  “Let that stinking bastard prowl around up there half the night,” Payton said in a low voice. “We’ll take it easy at Juan’s cantina until we get this thing settled.” They moved on through the darkness until they sidled over to the hitch rail. Leo and McCord stepped down outside the cantina doors.

  “It’s locked up tight,” Leo said, getting to the doors first and shaking the latch in his hands.

  Payton still sat atop his horse with the half empty bottle of rye in his hand. “So? Kick it in, idiot,” he said. “It ain’t like Juan Verdere’s gonna sue us over it.”

  “All right then, I will.” Leo raised a boot, sent the doors flying open in a spray of splinters and dust, and stepped inside, laughing. McCord turned and saw Payton still on his horse. “What about you? Ain’t you coming in?”

  “In a minute,” Payton replied. “This town is far too quiet to suit me. First I’m gonna ride up to where Paschal said the boy lives.” He gave an evil drunken grin. “Gonna introduce myself, so to speak.” He backed his horse from the hitch rail and moved it forward along the dirt street.

  Inside the cantina, McCord and Leo found the lamps hanging above the bar, lit them, and helped themselves to tepid beer and a fresh bottle of rye while Payton Parker rode up to the stable beside the adobe, where Paschal had told him the boy, Hernando, lived with his grandparents. “Well, now…” Payton whispered to himself, stepping down from his stirrups over to the lone horse that had been lying down in its stall. The horse stood and shook itself, nickering softly.

  Payton walked around it in the darkness and ran his hand along the federale saddle lying across a stall rail. As he stood there, he noticed the glow of the lantern brighten across the ground behind the adobe. He looked at it for a second, threw back a drink from the bottle, and peered into the outer darkness toward the foothills. “I’ll be damned.” Then he corked the bottle, turned, and walked to the door of the adobe. This was going to be easier than he’d thought.

  * * *

  Above the sleeping town, Paschal moved higher up into the foothills, farther up than he thought the women would be hiding. He knew these steep, narrow paths, knew how to move along them as quiet as a ghost. The women would be concentrating more on the town below than on the darkness above them. He didn’t like being up here, but now that he’d made it this far without somebody shooting at him, the rest would be easy.

  But Paschal had news for Payton Parker—he wasn’t about to flush these women out for him and the others. To hell with them. If he could take these women himself, he’d lead them higher up past the foothills and into the rocky passes of the distant mountains, familiar to him as the back of his hand. The Parkers would never find him and the women. Paschal could hold out up there and wait until the Parkers gave up. Then the gold would be his…he might even keep the women too. He smiled to himself, getting down from his horse, leading it downward now, cautiously taking his time.

  Chapter 22

  When Hernando and his grandparents heard the horse move past their adobe, they had looked out through the crack in the door and saw the dusty gringo ride by with a whiskey bottle in his hand. The old woman muttered and made the sign of the cross. Hernando and his grandfather, Ramon, looked at one another with worried eyes. Old Ramon nodded at his grandson. Hernando stepped quietly over to the window and raised the wick on the lantern. He looked out toward the black foothills, then went back to his grandparents.

  They stood in silence, the three of them, listening, waiting, as people might when a predator of the wilds prowls their yard. After a moment, they held their breath at the sound of heavy boots crossing the narrow planks to their door; and when they heard the pounding on the rough wooden door, their eyes flashed across one another as if in dark finality, and they stood silent for a second longer.

  Old Ramon had seen such men as this in the past. He knew if he did not open the door, the next sound would be the door ripping off its leather hinges. With a worried glance back at his wife, old Ramon moved to the door and slipped the bolt back with his trembling hand.

  “Well, buenas noches!” Payton Parker roared. He barged into the room, past old Ramon, catching him by his shirt and dragging him along behind him. Payton stopped at the window where the lantern glowed out toward the foothills. “Looky here, lo
oky here! I bet that’s the cleanest window this side of hell!”

  Young Hernando had stepped in, his small fists balled at his sides. But with a sweeping backhand, Payton Parker sent the boy sprawling across a wooden table and into a short pile of dried brush and kindling stacked beside a small sooty fireplace. “A little of the old light-in-the-window trick, eh?” Payton chuckled. He slung the old grandfather to the dirt floor and kicked him away like an empty feed sack. He then turned back to the lantern and laughed. “Now ain’t that the cleverest thing yet!”

  The old grandmother stood back in terror, her serape drawn tight against her weathered bosom. “Where are they, folks? Don’t make me mad at you!” Payton demanded.

  Old Ramon lay gasping on the dirt floor, his bare feet scrambling to seek purchase, but finding none. “Señor! For favor!” Hernando struggled up from beside the fireplace, a trickle of blood running from his lips, a red whelp throbbing on his cheek. “My grandparents did nothing to you! They are old and sick! Do not hurt them!”

  “Ain’t this sweet.” Payton smiled a crooked, drunken sneer. He stepped over and kicked the old man in the ribs again, just hard enough to make him heave for air. When Hernando lunged at him, Payton caught him at arm’s length by the throat and held him there, Hernando’s bare feet kicking an inch above the dirt floor. The woman took a step forward, but stopped when Payton said, “Don’t come at me, you damned old rag. I’ll break this boy’s neck…yours too.”

  “No! No!” The old woman shook her head. “Don’t hurt him…I beg of you! What do you want here? Do not hurt him!”

  “That’s a little more hospitable,” Payton said. He loosened his grip around the boy’s throat, but kept him out at arm’s length. “I was beginning to think I wasn’t welcome here.” He shook Hernando back and forth. “Now, where are those two girlfriends of mine, old woman. Tell me before I kill this little peckerwood.”